Home Office to relax cannabis oil rules, making it available on prescription within a month

The Home Office is set to relax rules over the prescription of cannabis oil across the UK, it has been reported, making it available to those with chronic pain within a month.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has reportedly approved the ‘rescheduling’ of cannabis-derived medicines in Parliament. An announcement is expected in the coming fortnight which will allow them to be prescribed without significant delays.

Currently, medicines of a cannabis origin are only prescribed in certain circumstances, after permission is granted by a number of medical experts.

Specialist doctors, it is expected, will be able to prescribe for people suffering chronic pain, epilepsy, chemotherapy nausea or MS and patients will no longer need to try other drugs before gaining a prescription for cannabis-derived treatments.

Treatments

Cannabis oil and other medicinal cannabis treatments do not produce a high. The component THD, found in recreational marijuana, is not found in medicinal cannabis treatments.